The US State Department denied over 37,000 applicants visas in 2018 as a result of the travel ban imposed by the Trump administration. This figure was revealed in agency data released on Tuesday.

Every year, the United States denies close to 4 million visa applications for many different reasons. The agency report released on Tuesday contained the first detailed study of the human effect of President Trump’s travel ban which he introduced just after resuming office as the president of the US.

Initially, when Trump announced the travel ban in 2017 and banned people from certain countries from entering the US, it mostly affected Muslim-majority countries. This action got for a strong opposition in the courts where the debate was fierce over whether the ban was illegal or was a lawful expression of presidential power.

The government had to review the policy due to the heat it got from the courts. The Supreme Court however permitted for the ban to become effective pending when the courts made a final decision on the matter.

For this reason, people from the affected countries have not been able to enter the US for over a year now.

15,000 immigrant visas refused

The data released on Tuesday reveal that 15,384 people who applied for migrants visas, had their visas denied. They were denied due to the “2017 Executive Order in Immigration”.

It also affected non-immigrant visa applications as 21,645 applicants were denied US visas. These are the category of people who came to the US for short-term visits such as for tourism and business.

The US State Department releases the numbers of people to whom it has issued visas every month, but it does not also reveal the number of visa applications that are denied.

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